TRIVIA - Things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today

[delt1c]

Kippers for breakfast on the Brighton Belle

 

[AY1975]

I noticed the cigarette machine last year but didn't know it was listed;
View attachment 45107

It says insert two 10p pieces, so 20p a packet (there were no 20p coins until 1982)!

So it must still have been in use at least in early decimal days in the 1970s.

 

[The_Engineer]

View media item 3077One thing I have not seen for a long while is the make your own nameplate machine on station platforms. Used to be 6d a time - I think - in the 1960s. Anyone still got their nameplates?? Mine have long since been lost.....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Fish traffic conveyed in Parcels Vans

On the same theme , coffins - telegraphed out as "Funco" (Funeral Corpse) - special rates as each had have an individual van , which was then fumigated and heavy cleaned. Traffic ceased to be conveyed in the early 1970's.

Light boxes of day old chicks - a common site from Andover as I recall.

 

[PeterC]

View media item 3077One thing I have not seen for a long while is the make your own nameplate machine on station platforms. Used to be 6d a time - I think - in the 1960s. Anyone still got their nameplates?? Mine have long since been lost.....

I had forgotten those. There used to be one on Romford station and I certainly stamped one out when I was 11 or 12. It wasn't cheap for a kid, appreciably more than a bag of sweets I think.

 

[Taunton]

One thing I have not seen for a long while is the make your own nameplate machine on station platforms. Used to be 6d a time - I think - in the 1960s. Anyone still got their nameplates?? Mine have long since been lost.....

I was at the Bluebell Railway some years ago, and got into conversation with an older couple. They said they had no particular interest in the railway, but were keen gardeners. They had probably been to Sheffield Park Gardens first. However, they had somehow remembered these nameplate machines from their youth, so had come over to the Bluebell to find one and run off a whole series of the aluminium strip plates to label their garden plants. They said it would be just the thing, better weatherproof than any plastic tags nowadays. I suppose they would.

However, I had to tell them that all those little platform machines did not belong to the railway, but to concessionaires, who would just take them away if no longer profitable.

There wasn't one at Taunton, but there was one on Bristol TM platform 9.

 

[AY1975]

Buffet car stewards coming round and serving tea and coffee at your seat, in the days before refreshment trolleys (see also my thread on the earliest trolley services at www.railforums.co.uk/threads/when-were-refreshment-trolleys-first-introduced-and-on-which-routes.163187). I think this still happens in first class, but sometimes used to happen in standard (or second as it was called until the late 1980s) as well if there were enough buffet staff to do this as well as staffing the buffet counter and if they weren't too busy with serving passengers at the counter.

 

[The_Engineer]

There wasn't one at Taunton, but there was one on Bristol TM platform 9.

My local ones were at Chester General and Crewe.

 

[Taunton]

Buffet car stewards coming round and serving tea and coffee at your seat, in the days before refreshment trolleys

Certainly on the Edinburgh-Liverpool (and many others) in the mid-1970s. Possibly 10p a cup. China cups served first, and money taken, followed by steward with two large silver coffee pots, one coffee, one hot milk. Nothing to go with it though.

Came the sad day when some efficiency expert at HQ, or more likely a partucularly hard-selling Rep from Maxwell House, struck, and all this was replaced with MaxPax, instant coffee granules in a cardboard cup, whose sale was now followed by the steward with just hot water. The Rep had doubtless said that instant coffee was just the same as brewed stuff ...

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

Certainly on the Edinburgh-Liverpool (and many others) in the mid-1970s. Possibly 10p a cup. China cups served first, and money taken, followed by steward with two large silver coffee pots, one coffee, one hot milk. Nothing to go with it though.

Came the sad day when some efficiency expert at HQ, or more likely a partucularly hard-selling Rep from Maxwell House, struck, and all this was replaced with MaxPax, instant coffee granules in a cardboard cup, whose sale was now followed by the steward with just hot water. The Rep had doubtless said that instant coffee was just the same as brewed stuff ...

More to do with the lack of visible revenue from the service !

 

[gtis]

Railway staff at Wombwell west

 

[Karl]

Platform ticket machines where you had to press a 2 pence piece with force for your paper ticket to gain entry through a staff attended entrance to the station.

 

[randyrippley]

Has anyone mentioned pigeons?
Every visit to Weymouth on a summer saturday, the first thing seen was the wagon loads of pigeons in baskets awaiting release.
I could never work out how the could ensure they were all released together.
But it does explain why the seaside is always infested with the flying rats

 

[Dr Hoo]

Certainly on the Edinburgh-Liverpool (and many others) in the mid-1970s. Possibly 10p a cup. China cups served first, and money taken, followed by steward with two large silver coffee pots, one coffee, one hot milk. Nothing to go with it though.

Came the sad day when some efficiency expert at HQ, or more likely a partucularly hard-selling Rep from Maxwell House, struck, and all this was replaced with MaxPax, instant coffee granules in a cardboard cup, whose sale was now followed by the steward with just hot water. The Rep had doubtless said that instant coffee was just the same as brewed stuff ...

Remember this! It wasn't unknown for staff to collect the money but then fail to get round with the actual drink before the hapless and thirsty passenger alighted.

 

[Class465fan]

Trolley services on southern and southeastern trains (not sure if they still provide trolley services).

 

[sbt]

Separate waiting rooms for Ladies.

Still exist in the Deepest South, on the Portsmouth Direct Line at least. There are stations where the Ladies Lavatory is accessed via a smaller, separate, Ladies Waiting Room. To keep things simple the Waiting Room and Lavatory are collectively labelled 'Ladies'.

Milford is a classic in this regard. It has a civilised Ladies Waiting Room and Toilets in the main building. The Gents are wedged in a narrow gap between the Station Building and what looks like an old Lamp Hut (now a rather rustic Coffee Shop that also does things like early morning Porridge). The Gents urinals look like they were originally open to the sky and its Water Tank is a bitumen covered lashup on its roof. - the whole Gents setup looks like it hasn't been touched since 1940.

 

[yorksrob]

Still exist in the Deepest South, on the Portsmouth Direct Line at least. There are stations where the Ladies Lavatory is accessed via a smaller, separate, Ladies Waiting Room. To keep things simple the Waiting Room and Lavatory are collectively labelled 'Ladies'.

Milford is a classic in this regard. It has a civilised Ladies Waiting Room and Toilets in the main building. The Gents are wedged in a narrow gap between the Station Building and what looks like an old Lamp Hut (now a rather rustic Coffee Shop that also does things like early morning Porridge). The Gents urinals look like they were originally open to the sky and its Water Tank is a bitumen covered lashup on its roof. - the whole Gents setup looks like it hasn't been touched since 1940.

Still avast improvement on Hampton, which has no such facilities (particularly as the trains don't either).

 

[randyrippley]

One thing I used to enjoy, was the excellent BR wine list...........
Whoever chose the wine for the WCML during BR days really knew his job. I used to frequently get a late train to London. Second class ticket, but get a meal and sit in first class for the whole journey. Excellent venison or halibut, and a couple of bottles of BR's best and the journey would seem to fly
Sadly any concept of quality food and drink on the WCML perished with the arrival of Virgin

 

[ChiefPlanner]

One thing I used to enjoy, was the excellent BR wine list...........
Whoever chose the wine for the WCML during BR days really knew his job. I used to frequently get a late train to London. Second class ticket, but get a meal and sit in first class for the whole journey. Excellent venison or halibut, and a couple of bottles of BR's best and the journey would seem to fly
Sadly any concept of quality food and drink on the WCML perished with the arrival of Virgin

Therein lies a tale , a bon viveur "Director" bought large stocks which were stored in the undercroft at St Pancras , and released for sale over a period , including special offers.

Nothing can beat the (paid for) quality of proper Pullman dining on Inter City services in the late 1980's , and open to all.

Not a bargain , but not a rip off either. "Home" cooked Yorkshire puddings and roast beef with all the trimmings , etc .....none of "Richards Wraps" ...!

 

[Bensonby]

Trolley services on southern and southeastern trains (not sure if they still provide trolley services).

They ended in 2014. Not much of a loss to be honest.

 

[341o2]

Fish traffic conveyed in Parcels Vans

On the same theme , coffins - telegraphed out as "Funco" (Funeral Corpse) - special rates as each had have an individual van , which was then fumigated and heavy cleaned. Traffic ceased to be conveyed in the early 1970's.

Light boxes of day old chicks - a common site from Andover as I recall.

The flower special Penzance to London (now goes by road)

 

[70014IronDuke]

View media item 3077One thing I have not seen for a long while is the make your own nameplate machine on station platforms. Used to be 6d a time - I think - in the 1960s. Anyone still got their nameplates?? Mine have long since been lost.....

6d ????????? !!!! You were being done there, mate, surely? Unless you were at Henley, or somewhere posh.

c 1961 it was 1d as I remember. For about 12 letters.

 

[The_Engineer]

6d ????????? !!!! You were being done there, mate, surely? Unless you were at Henley, or somewhere posh.

c 1961 it was 1d as I remember. For about 12 letters.

I was guessing! c1963 to 65 I used them, maybe it cost more than 1d by then, but - yes - on reflection 6d sounds high. But 10p (2/-) on the photo I rampant inflation!!

 

[randyrippley]

Tomatoes at Weymouth Harbour in thousands of boxes.
They'd be craned off the channel island ferries and stand on the goods wharf waiting loading onto box vans for carriage to London -presumably to Covent Garden?

 

[70014IronDuke]

I was guessing! c1963 to 65 I used them, maybe it cost more than 1d by then, but - yes - on reflection 6d sounds high. But 10p (2/-) on the photo I rampant inflation!!

I hadn't seen that photo when I posted. I must admit, I'd have thought none lasted into the decimal age - 1971!!

Massive machines, weren't they?

 

[bishdunster]

Tomatoes at Weymouth Harbour in thousands of boxes.
They'd be craned off the channel island ferries and stand on the goods wharf waiting loading onto box vans for carriage to London -presumably to Covent Garden?

ISTR from my days as a signal lad at Bournemouth in 1970 that the tomato trains from Weymouth always went to Washwood Heath

 

[randyrippley]

ISTR from my days as a signal lad at Bournemouth in 1970 that the tomato trains from Weymouth always went to Washwood Heath

Seems a strange destination but you probably know better than me!!!

 

[The_Engineer]

Seems a strange destination but you probably know better than me!!!

There was the big HP Sauce factory there, that may have accounted for the tomatoes' destination......

 

[DavidGrain]

There was the big HP Sauce factory there, that may have accounted for the tomatoes' destination......

Would also have provided a base for distribution to the Midlands and north

 

[eisenach]

Putting my little Honda 70 motorbike in the guard's van (late 70s) when I couldn't be bothered to ride it down from Leeds to Abingdon. I usually had to travel in the van with it. Just think of the Health and Safety issues with that now! A potential petrol bomb on board.